i Mark i. 12. And immediately the Spirit driveth him into Wilderness. the wilderness, first Adam, the evil spirit makes his approaches from without, proposing his suggestions in a personal conversation; for as the nature of Christ, like that of Adam, was uncorrupted by sin, the wicked spirit had no immediate access to the heart. It was for this cause that Eve was tempted in a personal conversation; so also was tempted the seed of the woman, who was to bruise the serpent's head. To shew, however, still more clearly the evident parallel that exists, between the temptations of the first and second Adam, it will be necessary to examine the peculiar circumstances of each event. According to St. John, all the sin that tempts mankind may be comprized in these three terms; the lust of the flesh,—the lust of the eye,—and the pride of life; and to these three may be reduced the temptations both of Adam and of Jesus. In the temptation in Eden these three principles of evil are evidently alluded to, in the description of the forbidden fruit. In the temptation in the wilderness, Christ was tempted like unto Adam; and in a more general sense, like unto all the children of Adam. Adam was first tempted to the lust of the flesh, by indulging his natural appetite for food, in a manner which was contrary to the express command of God. Christ was tempted to gratify his wish for food in a manner forbidden by the spirit of the law of God. He was tempted to supply himself with provision, by devoting that miraculous power which was given him for the benefit of mankind, and for the more effectual demonstration of the truth of his mission, to the gratification of his human nature. Adam was, secondly, tempted to the lust of the eye: "He took of the fruit, because it was pleasant to the eye." And the evil spirit enforces the power of the motives to disobedience, by perverting the understanding, in misrepresenting Scripture itself. Our Lord was, secondly, tempted by the perversion of Scripture itself, to indulge that feeling which is gratified by the admiration and homage of the world. He was invited by the Tempter to proclaim himself at once, by the performance of an useless and ostentatious miracle, the promised Messiah of the Jews. He was invited to encourage their false notions of a Messiah, and to obtain immediate possession of his promised kingdom, by throwing himself from the pinnacle (or wing, or battlement, or royal portico, for the word πTερÚуLOV, is thus variously rendered,) of the temple, and claim the homage of the crowds assembled to worship there. For the Jews interpreted literally the prediction of Malachi iii. 1. and expected that the Messiah, by some extraordinary demonstration of his power, would suddenly come to his temple. The pilgrimage which our Lord came to undergo, was one which was expressly and painfully opposed to all that train of feelings and dispositions, so pleasing to our fallen nature. The Captain of our salvation was to become perfect through sufferings. He was to be poor, despised, insulted, and rejected. At the time when his painful career was beginning, he was tempted to avoid his appointed course of suffering, and to assume at once his destined honours, as the Messiah of Israel. No evil, he was assured, could happen to him, if he were the Son of God; for he shall give his angels charge over thee,-they shall bear thee up, and protect thee from suffering and from danger. i Matt. iv. 1. Wilderness. to be tempted of the devil. Matt. iv. 1. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, Mark i. 13. tempted of Satan, Adam was, thirdly, tempted to that kind of evil, which most alienates the human race from their Creator; he was tempted to the pride of life. "It was a tree to be desired, to make one wise." The wisdom which an evil spirit would recommend to the approbation of an accountable being, must partake of his own nature; it must be different from that spiritual wisdom which is from above, and of which Adam was a partaker. It was the wisdom of this world, which is elsewhere called "earthly, sensual, devilish." It is that human wisdom by which the pride and glory of life is attained,-by which ambition triumphs, and conquerors obtain their temporal crowns and kingdoms. To this temptation likewise our Saviour is now subjected. The devil takes him up into an exceeding high mountain, “and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them," and promises them all to Christ on one condition only, that he will worship him,—that is, provided he will exchange his spiritual kingdom, which is to be purchased with the most excruciating agony and suffering, for the kingdoms of this world, all temporal power over every nation under heaven. In the second temptation he had invited Christ to obtain the homage of his own people, and to gratify his vanity and ostentation by hearing and receiving the acclamations of the Jews. In this he is solicited to become the sovereign of the universe, the powerful chief of one great empire, embracing alike under his dominion the subdued pride of Rome, and the submission of all mankind. Thus was Christ, the second Adam, tempted in the same manner as the first Adam; on the same principles, and by the same tempter. But he was also tempted as we are. The object of Satan, from the creation of Adam to the present moment, is to render man unfit for a spiritual condition, by inducing him uniformly to act from natural, or earthly, motives. The spirit of evil does not desire to diminish the supposed happiness of man in this world; it endeavours to immerse him in the pursuit of worldly enjoyments, comforts, and vanities, in such a manner, that the soul becomes imbruted, and embodied in material objects. The spirit of evil so endeavours to sensualize and animalize the intellectual and moral faculties of man, that his inferior nature may be triumphant; and consequently, that, when he shall be summoned into another stage of existence, he may be rendered totally unfit to be the eternal companion of God, the Judge of all,-of Christ the Mediator,-of Holy Angels,-and of perfect spirits. Other circumstances may be adduced to complete the parallel between the two temptations. The first Adam fell through the act of eating; the second Adam reversed the sentence of condemnation, by the opposite act of fasting and mortification. The first Adam was tempted in Paradise, surrounded by all the animals of creation, over which he ruled in a state of innocence: the second Adam is described by St. Mark, i. 13. to have been in the wilderness with the wild beasts. He sate among them, as their acknowledged Lord, in the same state of innocency, as the first Adam had enjoyed before his fall. When the temptations were completed, we read in both instances of a most curious and impressive circumstance, which in a wonderful manner completes this parallel. Luke iv. 2. Being forty days tempted of the devil. And wilderness. in those days he did eat nothing. When the first Adam fell, the angels of God were placed at the gate of the garden of Eden, to keep him from tasting the fruit of the tree of life. When the second Adam triumphed, angels came and ministered to him of that immortal food which the flaming sword of divine wrath had denied to the children of disobedience. For the passages in the Old Testament, which prophesy the coming of Christ as the second Adam, compare 2 Sam. vii. 18, 19. with 1 Chron. xvii. 17. When David desired to build the temple of Jerusalem, he was commanded to leave the performance of that task to his son, because he had himself been throughout his life engaged in wars. The message to this effect was delivered by the prophet Nathan, who consoles the king by declaring that from him the Messiah should descend. The king, on receiving this communication from the divine messenger, goes up to the tabernacle, and returns thanks to God for the promise. He thanks God that he has been regarded according to the law (a), or order (b), or arrangement (c) of the Adam that is hereafter to be from above. Among the titles given in the Old Testament to the Messiah, collected by Dr. Pye Smith, in his valuable work on the Scripture Testimony to the Person of Christ, I find this "the Adam from above." He cites, in support of the interpretation which he has there given of 2 Sam. vii. and 1 Chron. xvii. 16, 17. the learned criticism of Dr. Kennicott, from which however he has in some measure departed, by rendering the word "order," instead of "law." Bishop Horsley translates it "arrangement." His criticism is very ingenious. The words in the original are as follow-2 Sam. vii. 19. 278 D787 0710 Næn-1 Chron. xvii. 17. □nbx mint nbyan DIXO GIDD “IN'877, &c.; on which Dr. Kennicott observes, "From David's address to God, after receiving the message by Nathan, it is plain that David understood the son promised to be the Messiah, in whom his house was to be established for ever. But the words, which seem most expressive of this, are in this verse now rendered very unintelligibly, and is this the manner of man?' Whereas the words лn literally signify, 'and this is (or must be) the law of the man, or of the Adam,' i. e. this promise must relate to the law, or ordinance, made by God to Adam, concerning the seed of the woman; the man, or the second Adam: as the Messiah is expressly called by St. Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 45-47. This meaning will be yet more evident from the parallel place, 1 Chrou. xvii. 17. where the words are now miserably rendered thus: And thou hast regarded me, according to the estate of a man of high degree.' Whereas the words by 0787 710) “*871 literally signify, and thou hast regarded me, according to the Adam that is future, or the man that is from above,' (for the word nbyn very remarkably signifies hereafter as to time, and from above as to place;) and thus St. Paul, including both senses: 'The second man is the Lord from heaven:" and, "Adam is the figure of him that was to come," or the future. Rom. v. 14. It is upon this passage that Bishop Horsley has remarked (whether ɔ or be read in 1 Chron. xvii. 17.) "When these two passages are considered (a) Kennicott's (Posthumous) Remarks on the Old Testament, p. 114. (b) Smith's Scripture Testimony to the Person of the Messiah, vol. i. p. 184. (c) Horsley's Biblical Criticisms, vol. i. p. 350. Wilderness. And when he had fasted forty days and forty Matt. iv.2. nights, he was afterward an hungred: in their respective contexts, it is manifest that they are exactly parallel; and both, 2 Sam. vii. 19. "And this (namely, what was said about his house in distant times,) is the arrangement about The MAN, O Lord Jehovah." 1 Chron. xvii. 17. "And thou hast regarded me in the arrangement about The MAN that is to be from above, O God Jehovah." That is, in forming the scheme of the incarnation, regard was had to the honour of David, and his house, as a secondary object, by making it a part of the plan, that the Messiah should be born in his family. This is indisputably the sense of both passages, though far more clearly expressed by the later writer (d). Dr. Kennicott, not perceiving the identity of the two words ¬ and, was not aware that the two passages render the very same sense, with no other difference than the advantage of perspicuity, and perhaps of accuracy, in reciting David's very words, on the side of the author of the Book of Chronicles. I owe, however, to Dr. Kennicott the important hint, that, in Samuel, and by 0787, in Chronicles, allude to Christ, and to none else; which led me to the right understanding of both passages."-Horsley's Biblical Criticisms, vol. i. p. 184. See also Arrangement of the Old Testament, vol. i. p. 651. It is difficult to say why Bishop Horsley, after this confession, should have differed in another point from Dr. Kennicott, and translated 787 by the Man, instead of the Adam. Dr. P. Smith has very justly observed, from Dr. Kennicott's translation, that the inferences to be drawn from this passage are, that the Messiah would, at a period remotely future, descend from David, and that he would sustain a relation to the human race analogous to that of the first man. In the New Testament also, our Lord is called the Adam from above. We read these remarkable words, (1 Cor. xv. 47.) "The first man is of the earth earthy, he second man is the Lord from heaven." Through the greater part of that beautiful chapter St. Paul draws a parallel between the first and second Adam. In the Epistle to the Romans (v. 14.) he calls the first Adam "the figure of him that was to come." (Compare also John iii. 31. viii. 23.) (d) Smith's Scripture Testimony, &c. vol. i. p. 185. Matt. iv. 3. Luke iv. 3. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If Wilderness. thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. command this stone that it be made bread. The Jewish traditions also affirm the same doctrine, and St. Paul, in this passage, (1 Cor. xv. 47.) uses the very same expression which is found in the book Zohar on this subject: a circumstance which may be considered as affording a proof of the real date of that curious book. It is said to consist principally of a recital of the expositions and doctrines of Rabbi Simeon (e), the son of Jochai, who was the contemporary of the Apostles, and probably known to St. Paul, himself one of the most learned of his day. The Messiah is there called by 8, "the Adam on high," and is said to have dominion over all things, as the first man," the Adam below," nxnn 78, had by divine appointment over the inferior creation of this world. The same idea repeatedly occurs in the rabbinical writings. "Plura adhuc ibi habentur," says Schoetgenius, "sed hæc sufficiant." I have selected a few of the very curious traditions dispersed through his book (ƒ). I would here conclude the attempt to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was the one Messiah, from his being the second Adam, as the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Jewish traditions assert the Messiah to be; but Mr. Jones has added some ideas on the time during which the temptation lasted, which may confirm the propriety of the reasoning now adopted. According to tradition, Adam and Eve are supposed to have been tried forty days in Paradise. Jones, in his interesting dissertation on the "Temptation of Christ," arguing on this supposition, concludes that the period of forty days will, from this circumstance, naturally occur in other transactions; and particularly in this of our Saviour's temptation. The flood brought upon the world by sin committed in Pa (e) Schoetgenius Hora Hebraicæ, vol. ii. p. 271. of the Hora Hebraica-" Nomina illa duo Judæis (f) In vol. i. p. 670, sunt familiaria. Nam אדם קדמאי et in libro Sohar אדם הראשון Adamus primus semper et ubique Sohar Genes. fol. 14. col. 53. Quum nondum consummati essent septem ordines dierum superiorum, nondum absolutus erat by↳ □ Adam supernus. Cum absolveretur by superius, dictus est by □ Adam superior: cum absolveretur inferius, dictus est nxnn 8. Et quum admodum, postquam omnia absoluta sunt, Adamus inferior dominatur omnibus quæcumque in Mundo creata sunt, sic Adam superior bɔ by bw, omnibus omnino rebus dominatur."-Schoetgen. Hor. Heb. vol. i. p. 672. Jalhut Rubeni, fol. 147. 3. л 7171 naby 717 "David superior et David inferior." by "superior est Deus primus," panx ♬ nxnnm "et inferior est Deus prostremus." Schoetgen. vol. i. p. 673. In another passage of one of the Talmudical writings we read that since the first Adam was in the transgression, the Messiah will be the last Adam to take away sin. Neve Schalom, fol. 160. 2. citante Edzardo ad Berachoth, c. 1. p. 176. apud Schoetgen. vol. i. p. 671. In the commentary on Proverbs xxx. 4. we read-" What is his name?-the Heavenly Adam, or the Adam from aboveand what is his son's name? the earthly Adam, the Adam from below." Zohar ad Genes. xxxix. 2. "In the hour in which Adam received the celestial image, all creatures came to him, and acknowledged him king of the earth." Jalhut Rubeni, fol. 21. 1. Schoetgen. vol. i. p. 673. пxby xɔpr73 078 M'nɔ7 'nywa -"He was with the wild beasts." There is much curious matter also of a similar nature on those words of St. Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 49. εἰκόνα τοῦ χοϊκοῦ, Εἰκόνα TOU Eπovρaviov-" As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." Schoetgen. Hor. Heb. vol. i. p. 653. |